“Yeah, that's probably it. The Boss, did you wake up and suddenly discover that the two-dimensional power sealed inside you had awakened?” Dylan chimed in, acting all serious.

Brian Carter didn’t say anything and switched to the character selection screen.

Staring at the rogue he had poured his heart and soul into, he moved the mouse with a blank expression and clicked on the “Delete Game Character” option.

A system prompt popped up on the screen: “Are you sure you want to delete this character?”

“The Boss, don’t do it, don’t be impulsive!” Sammy hurriedly grabbed Brian Carter’s right hand that was holding the mouse, anxiously saying, “You finally managed to activate your two-dimensional energy. Even I believe you were born to play a rogue—why would you delete your account?”

The Carter Chief and Dylan exchanged glances, looking at each other.

The Carter Chief forced a meaningful look, as if to say: It’s over, The Boss really isn’t acting normal.

Dylan returned a look with the same implication, as if to say: Of course, guys who just got dumped are never normal.

The Carter Chief made a three with his left hand, drew a circle in the air, then made an eight with his right hand, as if to say: Is he going to be like that heartbroken kid from dorm 308 and do something stupid, like jump off a building?

Dylan shrugged, then pointed at his own feet, as if to say: Probably not. If he copies that idiot from 308 and jumps from the third floor, he won’t die, but he’ll end up with a comminuted fracture…

Just then, Brian Carter spoke: “Don’t you guys think this ID looks really glaring?”

His voice sounded perfectly normal—maybe too normal, which made the three brothers feel he was anything but.

To be honest, not only did Brian Carter’s game ID look glaring, but the three dorm mates also had some resentment about it.

On the day of the May Day open beta, the guys in dorm 301 were all about collective honor—their game nicknames were 301Sammy, 301 Xiao Huang, 301Dylan… Only Brian Carter didn’t cooperate, totally acting like he cared more about his girlfriend than his bros. Having just fallen in love, Brian Carter came up with an ID full of cringe: Nana’s Guardian Rogue.

The class beauty he’d been infatuated with for seven years was called Anna.

“You guys always ask me, if I’m so bad at playing rogue, why do I stubbornly keep playing it? Today I’ll tell you the answer.” Brian Carter stared at the rogue on the screen that hadn’t been deleted yet, muttering, “Back in my first year of high school, I kept asking around about what she liked—zodiac signs, celebrities, little animals, that kind of thing. Then one day, a classmate took out his phone to watch a game video—it was a PVP highlight reel of a foreign rogue player in ‘Fantasy World,’ and his skills were so flashy that all the guys in class were stunned…”

He paused, then continued, “She was watching too. After the video, I felt like her eyes were popping out little hearts like an anime girl, and then she clutched her chest and sighed—Wow, so cool!”

Sammy wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and asked, half laughing, half crying, “The Boss, don’t tell me you decided to play rogue just because of that one sentence?”

“Congratulations, you got it right.” Brian Carter smiled, a smile full of self-mockery for his high school years. He went on, “From that day on, I was determined to become an awesome, flashy rogue. Night after night, I dreamed of pulling off godlike moves that would blind her with my brilliance… In my dreams, she’d look at me like that, eyes full of hearts, and say to me, wow, so cool… Too bad reality and dreams are a bit different. I think you’ve all seen the reality.”

The three brothers fell silent. Their feelings about Brian Carter’s love for Anna were complicated.

Sometimes they thought Brian Carter was foolish and naive, wasting seven years of youth hung up on one girl.

Other times, they thought he was incredibly persistent, and this pure persistence made them respect him from the bottom of their hearts.

“The first day of open beta was also the day I officially got together with her. Well, maybe that’s not quite right—it was more like the first day I got played by her…” Brian Carter got lost in his memories, staring at the screen, muttering to himself, “That day, I wanted to take her back to where we first met, to tell her how I fell for her at first sight… But then Sammy called and told me to hurry up and create a character, so we went to the internet café together. She made an account too, said she wanted to play with me. I was so touched I almost cried. In a moment of excitement, I ditched the group and came up with an ID that even I despise…”

“Bro, that’s enough…” The Carter Chief’s voice was a little choked. This nineteen-and-a-half-year-old guy was so sensitive that he’d even cry reading smutty stories.

“Alright, I’ll stop.”

Brian Carter clicked the mouse again and deleted the game character.

This time, no one tried to stop him.

Nana’s Guardian Rogue, along with the boy who once wanted to protect Anna for a lifetime, died at that moment.

……

“The Boss, just because of that woman, you even deleted your account? You’re not going to have fun playing games with us anymore?” Sammy’s voice was filled with a kind of suppressed disappointment and anger.